Heart and circulatory conditions
Blood pressure, cholesterol, coronary artery disease, heart attack, stroke and rhythm disorders are each assessed on their own terms.
6 articles in this section
Cardiovascular conditions cover a wide range, from a slightly elevated blood pressure reading that a single medication controls, through to a heart attack with lasting effect on heart function. The underwriting difference between those two is enormous, which is why they are separate pages.
Across all of them, the pattern is similar: insurers care less about the diagnosis than about what has happened since, how well it is controlled now, and how much time has passed.
Questions about heart and circulatory conditions
High blood pressure and life insurance
Why treated hypertension is often a non-event in Canadian underwriting, what readings insurers actually use, and when it starts to matter.4 minHigh cholesterol and life insurance
Which cholesterol numbers Canadian insurers actually use, why the ratio matters more than the total, and how familial hypercholesterolemia differs.4 minCoronary artery disease, stents and bypass
How Canadian insurers assess coronary artery disease, stents and bypass, including ejection fraction, vessel count and time since treatment.4 minLife insurance after a heart attack
How long to wait before applying after a myocardial infarction, what insurers assess, and why your age at the event matters as much as the event.4 minLife insurance after a stroke or TIA
How insurers assess ischemic and hemorrhagic strokes and TIAs, why the cause matters more than the event, and what residual effects mean for an application.4 minAtrial fibrillation and life insurance
How insurers assess AFib, why the pattern of episodes and the state of the heart matter more than the rhythm itself, and what ablation changes.4 min
Related reading
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